


How to Date a Superhero

by TheHedgehogSong



Series: Superhero AU [2]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHedgehogSong/pseuds/TheHedgehogSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kieren had little to no real romantic experience. He had had one boyfriend (who had been so far in the closet he had been in Narnia), and two one night stands in his life. So he wasn't exactly sure how this whole dating racket went. However, he reassured himself as he pulled his boyfriend through the window of his room at 3 o'clock in the morning, anyone would be having difficulties working out the intricacies of dating someone who was not only quite a bit more older and experienced than him but also a professor at his uni and Roarton's one and only friendly local neighbourhood superhero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Date a Superhero

**Author's Note:**

> So warning first: this was supposed to be fluffy but turned out have lots of blood in it and a description of wounds and a bullet extraction - I don't quite know what happened tbh.
> 
> This is a continuation of the fic The Undead Saviour, however it can stand on it's own as well.

Kieren had little to no real romantic experience. He had had one boyfriend (who had been so far in the closet he had been in Narnia), and two one night stands in his life. So he wasn't exactly sure how this whole dating racket went. However, he reassured himself as he pulled his boyfriend through the window of his room at 3 o'clock in the morning, anyone would be having difficulties working out the intricacies of dating someone who was not only quite a bit more older and experienced than him but also a professor at his uni and Roarton's one and only friendly local neighbourhood superhero.

"Are you okay?" Kieren whispered as Simon stumbled into him, finally getting his entire body into the room.

"Fine." Simon breathed with a wince in his voice, pulling down his mask and pushing his hoodie off.

"Only the blood would suggest otherwise." Kieren replied, trying not to freak out about the blood covering his hand.

"Shit." Simon cursed, grabbing onto Kieren's hand and looking at it. "Sorry, I didn't get it on your clothes or the carpet did I?"

"You're bleeding Simon!" Kieren did his best to shout while still whispering - the result was somewhat squeaky. "I not so concerned with my clothes or carpet."  
"Don't worry Kier." Simon said in a soothing voice, no longer whispering but his voice quiet and gentle. "I'm fine honestly, or at least I will be. Let's get cleaned up and make sure the blood doesn't get on anything." Simon continued as calm as you like while Kieren was having what he suspected was a panic attack.

"Seriously?!" He hissed at his bleeding boyfriend.

"Seriously what?" The superhero asked, looking genuinely confused.

"You just admit to bleeding and expect me to believe you're fine!" His voice was doing the squeaky whispering thing again but Kieren couldn't exactly control it.

Simon seemed to pause, then gave Kieren a look that was somehow a cross between fond and reverent. The older man moved forward slightly, and cupping Kieren's face in his hands, pulled him into a kiss. Kieren really wanted to melt into it but the whole bleeding situation ruined the mood a bit. Simon seemed to understand this - or at least noticed Kieren wasn't as enthusiastic as usual - and pulled away, "You got a bathroom round here? I'll wash up and prove I'm not hurt okay?"

Kieren took a deep breath and nodded his head, he silently lead Simon out his room and to one of the shared bathrooms on his floor. 

After haphazardly washing the blood that was on his hands off Kieren perched on the edge of the bath and tried not to feel like a massive pervert as he watched Simon strip of his outer layers, laying them carefully on the floor to make sure the blood didn’t rub off.

When Simon was topless he held his arms wide and said “See I’m fine.” He had what looked like a stab wound on his side which was mostly healed but was surrounded by drying blood. Kieren stood up and approached Simon, tracing around the wound lightly, careful to not hurt and not to get more blood on him. “I’m fine Kier.” Simon reassured, gently dragging a hand through Kieren’s hair.

“How…” Kieren started but he trailed off, he had seen the news reports prior to meeting Simon. That the Undead Saviour could take a bullet and not even flinch, that he could get hit by a bus and keep moving, to be honest before he had started dating the superhero he hadn’t really thought about what powers he possessed. In fact, to be frank, Kieren hadn’t thought much about the hero full stop.

Kieren finally looked up into Simon’s eyes, away from the wound, and found Simon staring at him, that usual look that Simon got that made Kieren squirm. Kieren surged up and kissed Simon, gripping onto Simon’s waist, no longer caring about getting blood on himself. Simon kissed back although holding onto Kieren’s shoulders keeping him from pressing their bodies together which made Kieren laugh slightly into the kiss – Simon was clearly trying to keep the blood off of Kieren’s clothes.

Kieren pulled back slightly to smile incredulously at Simon so that he knew he was being an idiot, he got a sheepish smile in return. Kieren slid his hands behind Simon’s back to try and pull him further in. Just as Kieren’s fingers touched raised flesh on the superhero’s back, Simon’s hand shot down and caught Kieren’s wrist. That hadn’t felt like the knobs of his spine, _that felt like the edge of a wound_ Kieren thought.

“Si?” Kieren asked quietly. Simon lifted Kieren’s hands so they rested on either side of Simon’s neck and leaned his forehead against Kieren’s.

“Not tonight.” Simon breathed out. Kieren nodded minutely. The hand that had been pushing through the blood on Simon’s side had now left a bloody hand print on the side of Simon’s neck.

“I’ll go get a towel and some clothes for you. You can take a shower, yeah?” Kieren said and Simon smiled gratefully at him.

“Thanks Kier.”

Kieren rinsed the blood off his hand again and quickly went back to his room, grabbed a towel, some loose fitting joggers and a tshirt.When Kieren returned back to the bathroom Simon was already in the shower so Kieren left the things in a neat pile on the floor and went back to his room.

He lay down on the bed and waited for Simon to return. He hadn’t realised he was falling asleep until he was woken up by Simon stroking his face. “Budge up.” He whispered when Kieren blinked up sleepily at him.

Kieren basically plastered himself to the wall to allow some room for Simon to get in. It was a single bed certainly not designed to accommodate 2 fully grown men but somehow they managed to make it work and Kieren was asleep in a matter of minutes.

XXX

Kieren was awoken by the shrill of his alarm. Half of his body was freezing from being pressed into the wall and the other half was way too warm and sweaty from being pressed into Simon. Simon groaned and pushed his face into Kieren's neck, "Make it stop." He whined.

Kieren heaved out a sigh and, with great struggle, managed to detach himself from Simon and clamber over him to switch off the alarm - he ended up straddling him.

"I have like one lecture every two weeks." Kieren stated. "Of course the night you decide to crawl through my window would be the one before it, of course it would." Kieren grumbled.

Simon lets out a small huff of a laugh cracking his eyes open slightly and running his hands up Kieren's legs. "Sorry." He said, voice scratchy from sleep, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. It was weird for Kieren to see Simon like this, pale skin and white eyes. They had only been dating for a few weeks but ever since Kieren had found out his identity Simon had made him swear not to go wandering around the bad area of town again. "Come here."

Kieren sighed but leaned over and gave his boyfriend a kiss. "I've seriously got to get ready, the alarm gives me like 5 minutes." Kieren said, climbing off the bed and stumbling sleepily across the room.

Simon laughed and when Kieren looked over he could see him rolling his eyes. "What?" Kieren laughed.

"Typically student." Simon answered, still lying in bed looking as confortable as anything.

"Do you not need to get to lectures as well?" Kieren asked, gathering his clothes and debating whether to get changed in front of Simon or go to the bathroom.

"Only got afternoon ones today." Simon replied smugly.

"Well don't you need to go in and be in your office or something." Kieren asked, stripping of his sleep shirt, deciding to stay and get changed in the room - after all they were dating.

"Hm?" Simon enquired, blatantly staring down at Kieren's exposed torso making Kieren blush fiercely.

"Pervert!" Kieren giggled throwing his sleep shirt at Simon and hitting him in the face.

"Just admiring the view." Simon's voice came from under the shirt which he hadn't made a move to do anything about, for which Kieren was slightly grateful so he could quickly get changed.

Kieren pulled the shirt away for Simon's face when he was done. "Key's are on the side, lock up when you leave and you can give the key back when we meet for dinner tonight."

"Oh we're meeting for dinner tonight are we?" Simon asked with a smirk.

"Yes you're meeting me at the art studio at 5, then you're taking me somewhere fancy to apologise for climbing through my window in the middle of the night. Bleeding."

"Yes sir."

XXX

It turns out, as Kieren discovered, that having a boyfriend that has both a full time job and a night time vigilante habit meant that you don't actually get too much time together - and there's only so many times he'll sit in a literature lecture about a book he hasn't read while all the students fawn over said boyfriend before he demands a degree in literature.

"I don't think the examiners would accept that." Simon laughed when Kieren told him this.

"Well can you come over tonight then?" Kieren asked instead, seen as Simon was ignoring the main part of his rant - the not getting to see Simon part - namely, although he hadn't actually brought this part up, the not getting to do anything more than kiss Simon. They had been dating a few weeks and Kieren was more or less ready to throw himself at Simon. Don't get him wrong Kieren had nothing against the taking it slow thing, but he had a feeling Simon was feeling the same way if the increasingly heated looks and kisses were against to go by.

"I can't tonight." Simon said gently and Kieren couldn't help the way his face fell. "But tomorrow night you can come over to mine, I'll cook dinner and you can stay over, yeah?"

For all the pushing Kieren still blushed at the implication and he knew he was grinning is goofily but he couldn't help that either. "Sounds amazing."

Simon writes down his address on a post it, "Be there for 7.30."

Later that night Kieren is awoken by his phone ringing. "'lo" He answered groggily.

"Kier." Simon replied, sounding strained and breathless. Kieren sat straight up in bed.

"Simon? Are you okay? What happened?" He asked frantically, clambering out of bed and standing uselssly in the middle of his room.

"I'm fine Kieren, seriously I'm fine. I just need you to come round to mine if you can."

"What now?"

"Yeah, only if you can."

"Sure, of course I can. What's wrong?"

"Look just come round, I promise there's nothing to worry about." But even as Simon said this Kieren could hear the strain in his voice and the heavy breathing. "I'll leave the front door open."

Kieren pulled some shoes on and a coat and hurried around to Simon's as quickly as he could.

XXX

Kieren burst through the front door of Simon's house. "Simon!" He shouted out but there wasn't any answer. He made he's way further into the hallway and his breath caught in his throat, there was blood trailed on the floor and there was a bloody hand print on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

"Simon!" Kieren shouted again, making his way up stairs following the blood trail. When he reached the landing he heard Simon called out faintly.

"In the bathroom." Kieren made it towards the door with another bloody hand print on it and slowly entered the room. What he found was what looked like a crime scene, blood practically everywhere and Simon sitting in the bath.

"Oh my god! Simon!" Kieren rush over to kneel never to the bath.

"Hoenstly it's worse than it looks."

"What happened!" Kieren asked, hovering not sure what to do.

"I got shot."  
"WHAT?!"

"Kier it's fine, honestly. Usually I can deal with it myself but I've been shot in the back and can't reach to get the bullet out myself. I need you to get it for me."

"What?!" Kieren repeated, "You want me to remove a bullet!?"

"There's a pair of tweezers on the side, all you need to do is yank it out and put some gauze on it, after that my body will do the rest."

Kieren wanted to complain, that it couldn't possible be that simple but Simon was looking and talking at him calmly - Kieren had to assume the superhero knew better than he did.

Kieren stood up and took his coat off, going over to the side to pick up the large tweezers Simon had clearly got out in preparation, some gauze and tape lay next to them. 

When Kieren turned around to face the bath again, Simon had taken his shirt off and was struggling to get up from where he was lying in the bath.

"Here, let me help." Kieren moved over to him and put his arms around Simon. Simon put his weight on Kieren and together they managed to get him sitting on the side of the tub, legs still in it so his back was face out. 

Kieren tried and failed not to gasp when he looked at Simon's back. It wasn't the bullet wound in his left hand should blade that was still spewing out blood that made him gasp. It was the huge scar that ran down the length of his spine- although maybe scar wasn't the best way to describe it, some of the spine was exposed and it was oozing black goo in places. It made Kieren feel sick.

"Simon." He managed to choke out.

"The bullet Kieren, focus on the bullet I'll explain...the rest later." Simon said, sounding less calm than before.

"Okay." Kieren said. Kieren walked over and put his hand on Simon's back, his thumb and his forefinger framing the bullet wound. He was trying desperately to ignore his spine but he was trying to ignore the nausea that was rolling through him about the spine, about the bullet hole and about what he was going to do. "I can't see the bullet." Kieren said shakily.

"You're going to have to dig for it." Simon said quietly. Kieren almost retched, he took a deep breath in through his nose and breathed out through his mouth. He did this a couple more times before taking the tweezers and pushing them into the wound.

Simon's body tensed and he let out a grunt as Kieren pushed the tweezers in further. Finallly after what felt like far too long the tweezers hit something, Kieren - praying that is was the bullet - pinched down and pulled. Simon let out a long agonised shout as Kieren managed to yank the bullet out. The wound started to bleed even more.

"I'll get the guaze." Kieren said quickly.

"No, no wait." Simon grunted, standing up and striping himself of the rest of his clothes. Kieren could quite happily say this was one of the grimmest ways he could see his boyfriend naked. Simon put the shower on and quickly washed the blood off his body.

Kieren took a towel off the rack and when Simon was finished got him to face away from him again. He dabbed the area around the bullet wound and then applied the gauze with the tape, the wound was already bleeding less.

Kieren passed the towel to Simon so he could dry himself while Kieren washed the blood off his hands.

"Let's go lie down." Simon said, though it sounded like a question.

"Sure." Kieren replied looking around the blood spattered bathroom.

"I'll  clean it later." Simon reassured him.

Simon led Kieren into the bedroom and Kieren sat on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes. He felt a dip in the bed and saw Simon had put some pyjama bottoms on and getting under the covers. Simon patted the space next to him. Kieren crawled under the covers too - facing Simon.

"Sorry." Simon said, bringing his hand up to stroke through Kieren's hair. Kieren shrugged in lieu of knowing what else to do. "I guess I should explain." Simon said, Kieren remained silent and still. "Right well I'll start at the beginning.

I'm originally from Roarton. When I was younger I was depressed, I thought life was meaningless Drugs used to help with that. I would to take anything and everything. I had this dream of going to America, I thought it would change everything. I managed to get there eventually - but within the first couple of weeks I was back to feeling how I used to and I turned back to drugs.

One night I OD'ed. Apparently I died that night - I honestly don't know. Next thing I knew I woke up in some laboratory. Some Frankenstein wannabes were trying to bring people back from the dead or something - they told me it was to help humanity - to help cure incurable illness and would make sure people didn't suffer anymore. I though I would do the noble thing for once in my life so I agreed to help them. That's when the experiments began.

They realised quickly that I healed really fast. They did all sorts of twisted stuff to me. I finally snapped when they were experimenting on my spine - they injected me with something that made me heal slower, the black ooze. My healing factor and whatever they injected me with are always fighting over my spine, usually it's closed up but when I get hurt and my body needs to heal a something other than my spine it opens up again.

I managed to escape one night, before I left I set fire to their research. I can only hope that I destroyed enough that they won't do that again to anyone else. 

I got back to Roarton only to discover my mum had killed herself after she found out about my death, my father blamed me and kicked me out the house. After worked on getting my life in order, getting an education, becoming a professor. It wasn't until about a year ago, I saw someone being mugged and I went to go stop it, I got stabbed but I was fine - I realise I could do something good with my life, thus the Undead Saviour was born."

They were silent for a while after Simon finished his story before Kieren said, "Thanks." In a hushed voice.

"For what?"

"For sharing." Kieren moved forward and kissed Simon. Slowly the kiss got more and more heated until Simon rolled them over so Kieren was on his back and Simon was above him, resting between Kieren's legs.

"Is this okay?" Simon asked.

"Fine." Kieren breathed, locking his hand in Simon's hair pulling him back down into the kiss. They had sex like that. Simon looking down at him like he was heaven sent. Kieren scrambling at Simon's hair and shoulder - trying not to put his hand anywhere near his back so he didn't catch either wound.  Panting into each others mouth, being far too warm and sweaty under the covers but neither one of them wanting to lose the intimacy of it, like the covers were protecting them from the rest of the world.

When Simon came it was with a groan that seemed to be ripped from him as he buried his face in Kieren's neck. Kieren followed soon after, hair clenched in Simon's hair - so tight it had to hurt.

Simon collapsed to the side of Kieren but kept an arm around him to keep him close. He tilted Kieren's face so they were looking at each other. "You're amazing Kier."  Simon said, making Kieren blush.

"You're not too bad yourself."

Kieren had little to no real romantic experience so he wasn't exactly sure how this whole dating racket went. However, he reassured himself as drifted to sleep next to Simon, he wasn't doing too bad dating someone who was not only quite a bit more older and experienced than him but also a professor at his uni and Roarton's one and only friendly local neighbourhood superhero.


End file.
